Until I was nine, I lived in one of New York City's "melting pot" neighborhoods, where a wonderful mix of freely-mingling cultures, languages and races welcomed me into life on Earth. God, or my conception of God, was always at the center of my life and I conversed freely with the being I had inwardly invented to right wrongs, heal whatever hurt and generally keep the world just and flowing.
Facing East
I attended college on the West Coast (Portland and San Francisco) in the late sixties, where I discovered many kindred souls seeking deeper meaning and expanded purpose in their lives. Some of these friends turned my attention to teachings from the East—first Zen, and then masters from India. After a focused exploration of some of the life-enhancing modalities available at the time—and there were lots—I learned the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique offered by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Berkeley in 1967.
TM's gifts were unmistakable and I started a thirty-year career of devoted service to the Vedic tradition. For many of these years, I taught the TM technique. This work was indescribably rewarding—an act of pure love that took me all around the U.S. and to many parts of Europe and Asia. I also spent a lot of time simply meditating, including seven years in a non-denominational, convent-style setting. This whole period precipitated vast spiritual and personal growth which remains fully integrated into my life, a gift that keeps on giving.
Facing West
After spending most of my adult life looking East, in about 1996, I began to discover the indigenous traditions of the West, or the Americas. I spent several challenging years working with a Ho-Chunk teacher, who helped me clear many deeply-rooted spiritual and personal belief systems. During that period, I also opened to a profound and intimate relationship with the Earth: her wondrous creative nature, her healing and nourishing gifts and her deep wisdom. I felt like every cell in my body turned around 180 degrees as I learned to embrace life on Earth with a grounded kind of joy and openness that I had never before known.
I have also been privileged to know a great Lakota wisdom keeper, Sun Dance leader, healer and teacher, Naça Wa'Anata. Through him, I received a personal pipe, a precious and powerful source of blessing, inspiration, and transformation. Both Wa'Anata's teaching and my personal experience with the pipe and other Lakota sacred ceremonies, especially the Sundance, have saturated every material and non-material aspect of my life with divine light.
Eternal Silence
I spent five years (2002-2007) living largely in silence in beautiful northern New Mexico, merging with the Earth and ultimately with the infinite Silence that is the reality of creation. Through this process and many others, I was blessed by the unconditional love, wisdom, mentoring, humor and eternal friendship of Bill Bauman, an indescribably special gift from the Infinite in my life and the life of many friends.
It is beautiful beyond all words to live in eternal freedom.
The Path of Grace
In 2013, before departing for a three-month stay in France, friends sent suggestions for places to see. Almost all of them were associated with Mary Magdalene, and so, much to my surprise, I found myself on what I now call the Mary Magdalene Trail. While meditating in a small chapel dedicated to Mary in the enchanting town of Rennes-le-Chateau, she gave me a gift that transformed how I live and teach.
Mary fully merged with me and then conveyed the following undertanding, supercharged with indescribable love: I love you (meaning all of humanity) so much that I will now take care of every step of growth on your journey home to your Source. You no longer have to strive in any way. I will do all that is needed. All you have to do is let me/my love into your heart.
A whole new style of sharing (and living) that I now call the Path of Grace flowed from those miraculous moments of union with Mary. It is an exquisite path of opening, receiving, surrendering, allowing. It ends all illusion of being in control and the consequent need to fix or make things happen.
The culmination of this path has taken place over the last three years. It can best be described as simply being Being in every possible way. The Void/the Infinite has dissolved, absorbed into Itself, all that I am and have ever been. Only the Infinite remains and It has re-created me as an expression of Its gifts that seem both magical and wondrous. The Infinite now effortlessly shares these exquisite gifts, appearing as “me,” throughout the multiverse—and throughout this amazing planet and all her children. Life feels truly miraculous.